I Am Sooooo Confused Please Help

[syrian_vai]

music , ( sigh ) its one of god's gifts to us mortal humans , u know , god gave us many pleasures , But believe me , every pleasure is followed by guilt , after u eat , u blame ur self cuz u might gain weight , after making love , u feel a kind of disgust in ur self ( lol if u know what i mean ) , after sports , u feel tired and beaten , but man , listen to the music u like ( No matter if its Classical , Metal, blues , hell even 3 chords for a pop song ) and u wont feel ashamed at all , ur soul is going to be loaded with a new hope , a new feel .

I am 19 , i live in damascus/Syria , i am studying medicine , i apologize because of my weak - full of dictating errors- english , please forgive me , and thank u for listening .

I grabbed my first guitar a year and a half ago , after i finished highschool ( studying in our country is REALLY hard , so u dont have time to do anything during ur study lol )

my main influence was Mr.Yngwie J Malmsteen , and the Late mr.Roy Buchanan and many others
I really wanted to create that kind of celestial music those men created , and considering that i dont have many friends , i am a kind of a loner here , lol , dont have any girlfriend to spend time with , ( i dont think anyone can keep up with me more than 27 mintues ) , I decided to have something in my life ,that would make me busy , and , happy at the same time ( u know staying in the county jail would do the trick of keeping up bust , but i dont like that choice really, if u know what i mean !!! )

So i bought a REALLY CHEAP samick Guitar ( i dont know if u know that kind of guitars , korean i think ) and a marshal 15 watts amp to practice with ( i really didnt want to play classical guitar )
and i started.

I bought a lot of books ( Mr.Troy Stetina's Rhythm1 and 2 , Lead 1 and 2 , And Speed mechanix , Mr. Frank Gambale's Techinque book, and others ) u know i didnt have anyone to guide me , so i didnt know what to buy , i went online and searched for some books that other good guys found it usefull , and Voila , i bought em !

The problem is , i DO NOT KNOW if i am Getting good or not , i mean ,i practice on the same things on and on , u know , i am a med student , WE MUST STUDY LIKE MULES lol , So , i dont have much time to practice , i practice about 90 minutes everyday Well NOT A CLOCK WORK everyday , but , u know ...

So When i start practicing i go with the chromatic 1234 kind of thing , with a metronone , THOUGH I DO NOT KNOW HOW SHOULD I CHANGE THE TEMPO , i mean when and TILL WHAT SPEED SHOULD KEEP PUSHIG THE TEMPO UP ?!?!!

Anyway , this exercise take about 30 minutes ( i dont KNOW HOW MUCH SHOULD I PRACTICE ) and then i start doing some technique exercises , But , i am so confused , I DO NOT KNOW HOW SHOULD I PRACTICE SCALES , WHAT SCALES SHOULD I KNOW BY HEART , WHAT MODES , WHICH CHORDS SHOULD I MEMORIZE , SHOULD I STUDY THEORy ?? IF YES, WHAT SHOULD I STUDY ??? ( THERES A GREAT SITE FOR THEORY Its : www.musictheory.net AND ITS A MUST )

U are probably saying now guys : this stupid guy has everything : Books , AN EXELLENT theory site , GUITAR ,WHAT THE HECK IS HE ASKING FOR ???

guys

I DO NOT KNOW HOW TO MANAGE MY TIME , WHAT TO EXERCISE DAILY , WHAT KIND OF MATERIAL SHOULD I USE , I DONT HAVE ANY TIME SCHEDULE FOR THE NEXT LETS SAY 5 YEARS i mean what kind of progress i should be acomplishing for the next 5 years, I DO NOT KNOW WHAT STAGE I SHOULD BE IN RIGHT NOW , PLEASE HELP ME GUYS , I AM SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO DESPERATE .

Thanx for listening , u are great , god bless u all

[Bongo Boy]

About I can offer is this: it's sounds like you are very frustrated. MY OPINION is that frustration is the No. 1 root of all evil when it comes to guitar. You must find another way.

First off, don't worry about, or even consider, if you're as good as you should be. It's all relative, there IS no answer. The only question is, are you as good as YOU could be? The answer is almost certainly, "No.". Are you as good as you have time for, probably not, but probably you're closer to that than you are to 'as good as you can be'.

I think you're looking for some feed back..to find out if others see progress. That makes sense and there's nothing wrong with that. You won't get that kind of feedback, though, unless you participate with others on your journey thru gutar-dom.

Please take a look thru one or two of Eric's articles published at this site regarding practice. He deals with the issue of how to use your time. Look thru those materials, then carefully think about what it is that has you so frustrated. When you are NOT frustrated, but can think about these things clearly, come back here and try to ask some specific questions about practice.

MY OPINION is that your only goal should be to improve over what you can do today. The questions you may have involve "what is improvement" and "what should I be improving at". These are valid questions, but you know there are many areas of guitar that you can work on and improve--even if maybe they aren't the most important. Speed, for example would be the LAST thing to improve.

[Carvinite]

Alright man I can only really tell you this everyone practices different...this is my shceldue


I. Warm-up
a. 1-2-3-4 ex. 3 min. (no breaks) bumoing tempo up as i get more comforatble.
b. noodle with 3-&-4 note per string Ex. 2 min (no breaks)

II. Technique

a.Sweep Picking 16 min (with breaks) (see eric's articles on sweeping..he has great exersices)

b.Legato 15 min (with breaks) (see eric's articles on legato..he has great exersices)

C.String Skipping 15 min (with breaks) (see eric's articles on string skipping..he has great exersices)

d.Two-Handed Tapping 16 min (with breaks) currently there are no articles about two-handed tapping

IV. Theory

a.Scales--Petathonic scales-&-All 7 Modes....

B.I just study according to where i am and until i think i have had enough

V. Jamming

a. I noodle...making my own stuff up

b. I jam all the songs I have been working on, + the ones I already know according to wich ones I wanna play


Ok now the first thing you have to realize is I dont always do this whole practice schedule..it is an outline of things i think i need to do each day....I break it down into two parts some day's and others i might not do some at all..it depends on how i feel....I sure hope this helped!!!

Have a good one,

Ryan

[Carvinite]

I feel so rude not welcomeing you to the IBM boards so.....

Welcome to the boards

[syrian_vai]

I joined this site , cuz it didnt seem like any other site , and u are guys , u are not like any other people out there , thank u for ur interest , and thanks for ur much helpfull replies ,Bongo boy , after reading ur reply i really tried to take things easy , and i had much a big relief , and Ryan ( Kramer man) I really thank u for ur shcedule ( i am kinda following it right now , lol , i hope u dont mind ) , thank u all guys , i was really touched by ur care , another thing ryan , u call ur self kramer man , do u mean that u use Kramer guitars ?? MAN IF U DO THEN U ARE USING THE BEST , mr.troy stetina's uses the same kind , I wish u the same progress he did

another question , how did u manage to learn which scales can suite which chords , in soloing and improvising i mean.

And do u believe all solos are improvised , if not , how do u WRITE a solo and prepare it ??

god bless u all , Peace

Fateh

[Carvinite]

I put my name as kramer_man because i use a kramer focus it's not a high end model Kramer, they cost about 80 dollars from www.musicyo.com ...they play very nice but nothing like a Jackson or any other high-end guitar....as for that schedule i dont mind if you follow it...but if you want to change it up, GO FOR IT!!...mess around with making it work for YOU...

and as for solos...I have no idea if they are improvised or written out some say they write theirs but other improvise.....no the way I can see writing them is the same as making up riffs...you make a riff and that leads to another riff....so in a solo you have sections...If i am going to work out a solo I get the intro and all the little sub-parts to it...but most of the time i improvise .......

as for knowing how to solo over chords i will finish that in a little bit...I have school work to do

later

Ryan

[syrian_vai]

Well Ryan Did u check the site i mentioned in my first post ??
Tell me what do u think abt it , oh and another thing , i am working on a peace ( stratosphere ) by stratovarius if u know em , tell me what do u think abt it

Peace

[Carvinite]

oh yes i use that site on many occasions.....i am homeschooled so i use it for my guitar course....my teacher will give me stuff to learn and ill do it...that site is great!!

[Carvinite]

Dude I havn't forgotten about you I have just been real busy...ill try to finish what I started....So ill try and explain it to you here in acouple of days ...I am sorry but I gtg man later,

Ryan